My Moment
by gammameta
Summary: Every dog's got her day. Jubes gets hers. Meddlesome matchmaker!


_A/N: Logan and Marie weren't LISTENING to me. They were being DIFFICULT. So I decided to write myself into the story and give 'em a good talking to. Hehe. Valeria wrote the lines about the beautiful colors and batteries. Thanks, Val. ;)_

"Friends, Romans…" This is my moment. I clasp their shoulders companionably. "Countrymen…"

"Yellow…" That impatient but not yet growly look.

"Logan," I echo meaningfully back. "Shut up and sit back, 'cause it's time for you to listen. And point of order: I could find many ways to take offense to that name you just called me. Yellow doesn't have the most positive of connotations. Yellow-bellied. Yellow bile." I tick off on my fingers, 'cause his eyes are startin' to glaze over. "Yellow race," I bite meaningfully.

"Jubes—" Rogue is scandalized. Oh, yes, let's not upset Miss Princess.

"But I'm going to overlook those possible connotations, such rude, impolitic language—"

"Yer always wearing yellow…" he growls.

"Because yellow is the color of butter and sunshine—"

"And I'm not the only one." Someone's defensive.

"And daisies and daffodils. Cheese! Cheerio's boxes! And…and chocolate!"

"Chocolate?" Rogue questions dubiously.

"Ok, not chocolate. But a lot of positive things are yellow, and I like yellow, too. I look damn fine in yellow."

"I got no time for this bullshit," he's rollin' his eyes and moseyin' past me, damn fine ass that….but I can't let him leave yet.

"So I'm willing to overlook it!" I yell after him. "Because I am a wonderful! person!" I study my nails nonchalantly waiting for him to acknowledge me in my all magnanimity, and he's paused, he has. Got him.

Ok, so when I look up and he's got a brow cocked at Rogue all conspiratorial and isn't-Jubes-crazy, that's not quite what I'd hoped for. But he's here, still, and I can poke him back towards Rogue. He only bristles a little at that, but only for the poking part. 'Cause, really, the man is so transparent.

Let my last poke come with a bit of a crackle and fire, too, 'cause damn, he's hot when he gets annoyed. He heals anyway, and really, his shirt is kinda ass-y. Rogue'll thank me when she gets to take him shopping and buy him a whole new—

"Jubes!" Rogue and that outrage again, and hell, the girl's transparent, too, all bending down and touching his 'wound', which is nothing now, just nice smooth skin and the peek of hair, Rogue's gloved hand smoothing. Yeah, that was Wolvie twitching and those killer abs jumping, and I'm thinking that, hey, that might be all that's required. His heated gaze looking down at her bent head, her anxious fingers and flushed lips.

A hole in a freakin' shirt?! That's all it took after all this time? Damn, I'm good! And leaving…jeez…before they--

But then there's the murmured words between 'em, and Logan's cold voice tellin' her he's 'fine', firm tossing away of her wrist, and Rogue's embarrassed, pained look.

Christ, give me strength.

"Enough!" They both look up startled, annoyed.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Rogue's humiliation turned back on me?

"Be-cause…because…'cause you two are gonna listen up, bub.-ssz." That's right, two, and I face them with my bitchface on. Oh, yeah. The bitchface. I'm totally bad-ass, and they both look really annoyed. "I'm here to tell you, from me and everyone else – you two totally need to get laid!"

Wolverine's nostrils flare at that, brow pulling down in formidable lines, but Rogue's mouth just falls open, and she repeats as colorlessly as I've ever heard her, "Get laid?"

"Yeah," I jeer, hands on hips. 'Cause, honestly, I can be a friend and all, but the girl is just dim. "Get laid. Have sex. Do the nasty. Bump and grind. Fuck like bunnies. Hump—"

"I don't need you to tell me how to get women," Casanova interrupts in a flat tone that is scarier for its lack of emotion, and he's roughing past me and out the room, all hunched shoulders and flexing hands.

"You need my help to get Rogue." Yeah, Wolvie, swing around. His gaze snaps to Rogue, and she pales a little, her eyes lookin' eerily dark. I'm standin' between them, fearing that I'm going to get sucked into the vortex of their longing, but, even as I'm takin' a step back for safety's sake, their gazes light back on me. Me. As though I'm crazy. How did I get such dim friends? "That's right! That's what we're sayin'. Just DO it already."

"Fuck off, yellow." Ooh, teeth. This time he's not kidding.

"Fuck each other," I huff, but they're still just frozen and staring at me. It's up to me, isn't it—the weight of the world? SIGH. Paint by numbers it is. "He? loves you, Rogue. She? wants you, Wolvie. Ok? And she's not the only one." He snarls a little at me, but he's too thrown to mean it. I shrug. "Can't blame a girl for trying." Not like he doesn't know anyway.

Which is why this whole staring-across-the-room thing they're doing now is soooo stupid. Rogue all paralyzed want and breathless fear, and Wolvie—well, he's harder to read. But coiled might be a good word. Barely restrained. Smoldering.

Yum! Hehe. And dumb. Can't he see it? Smell it?

I roll my eyes, whistle. "Yoo-hoo. Need an interpreter?"

"Jubes—" Rogue's recovered shakily, it seems, but for all her yammering sessions with the Wolf-man, she does a piss-poor job of talking about anything real. I'm ignoring the white-streaked wonder.

"Ah'm Rogue," I drawl, note with pleasure how that immediately sets her back up. "Ah'm oh-woe-is-me. Untouchable girl. Hafta wear gloves all the time. Shame the way they're so pretty and eye-catchin' and all." She snaps the cuff of the one she was fiddling with, but I manage to grab it, lay my head on her shoulder, pitiful dramatic sniffling, and Rogue's so surprised, all she does is mutely appeal to Wolvie. "NO ONE," I continue, "will touch me. No one except—him! He touched me. He touches me. He saved me!" I pout for ol' Wolvie who is watching uncomfortably, although Rogue has turned away in pique. "That's mah tragedy! Because now that he's saved me, he'll never touch me. Not the me-me! Ya know…deep inside?"

Now that's just made everyone uncomfortable. Gotta think things out before I say 'em--. "So just to be dramatic, and because I don't get that many lines, gotta milk 'em for all Ah'm worth: Ah—Ah'm unTOUCHable!"

I really thought I sold that last line, but Rogue's rubbing her hand across her brow, hidin' again. "Jubilee, I swear—" Her voice is low and warbling, but there's a throbbing undercurrent there, too. Better move along.

"And Wolvie! I'm a tough, wild man," I growl in as low a register as I can go, pound my chest, which has Rogue almost-maybe laughing behind that hand of hers. "I'm bad ass. I eat shit like you for breakfast."

Wolvie knocks me back not-so-lightly as I approach. "Watch it," he grouches, gatherin' height. So, okay, I know how to read a threat when I see one. But ain't it fun to poke the beast?

"I ain't got no pansy-ass things like feelings," I smirk, adopting his trademark brow. "Got real manly love. Unrequited, torch-like love. Get it? Torch? On the torch? Er—yeah. Real manly love, completely platonic love for that girl over there. But like a dick, I sit around all moody and smokin' hot, broodin' and thinkin'…ain't got the girl." I groan to the heavens, "I'll never get the girl. 'Cause I saved her, see, and she's worth a thousand of me. She doesn't really love me. Not me! The me-me…deep inside?"

I'm totally sniggering. Who knew I was so funny? Rubbing the knuckles definitely an inspired touch. Maybe I should take up acting. Or matchmakin'. 'Cause, damn! I'm not just good, I'm--

"Stop," Rogue's approaching, white face, strained eyes, and she's gonna be all serious and angst-y again. "Stop tryin' to get us together, ok?" She throws an apologetic glance to Wolvie, sucks in a breath. "We're just friends," she continues quietly. "Good friends. And I owe him my life. That's—that's all we'll ever be."

Wolvie's eyes bank and then drop to the floor, and Rogue's gloved hands are twined painfully together, and—"Oh. My. GOD! What do you, think you two are the love story of the century or something? This doesn't have to be so exhausting. In fact, it's fucking easy: just bone each other already!"

I snap round to Wolverine. "Rogue is a big girl now—see, look? Boobies!" I poke, and Rogue slaps me away. "And hips. Simply delicious curves. Gorgeous lips. And let me tell you, she isn't pining away for some Prince Charming, ok? She's a girl with needs, alright? She's found ways of fulfillin—"

"Jubes," Rogue hisses in my ear, and not-so-gently yanks at my hair.

"—those needs. She has porn. She has toys. She has fantasies."

"Don't you--!" Violent, isn't she? But really not all that quick.

"Toys are pretty colorful, too, and all of them happy to see her." Eek! She nearly got me that time. "Just as well they're rechargeable batteries." Hehe.

"I'm going to kill you!" My friend looks more than capable at the moment, hair streaming all around her and glowering eyes and dangerous skin inches from my face.

"See? Here's the passionate side. She's even had dreams about y—"

Rogue's clamped her gloved hand over my mouth, but when I grab her arm and spin her around, she's not expecting it, and Wolvie's arrested and, shall we say, interested expression arrests her. She's even blushing. God, she doesn't deserve him.

"I'll let her tell you about them dreams, I think." Give her a little shove from behind, and she stumbles a step closer. But for all that, they're still standing there, and Wolvie isn't huffin' like a Mack truck or makin' me think in any other way that that's about to change any time soon. One final push maybe.

I march over to Wolvie, who's still eyein' Rogue in that intense but insecure way of his, eyes flicking to her, then away. Rogue, well, she looks mortified.

Jeez Louise…these two.

"He," I point, I gesture, "L-o-v-e-s. You." The diagram with the heart and everything, because you never know. These two aren't the brightest pair. "You should totally see him when you're not there, Roguey. Every time he comes back to the mansion, he's all preoccupied and cranky. Until you show up, and then he smiles that golden, roguish smile."

Now it's Rogue's eyes that turn wide and seeking, nervously eyeing me-then-Wolvie-then-me. "Yeah, that's you! You think he's nice to us?! And let's not forget The Look of Liquid Yearning every time you leave a room!" I jab Wolvie playfully, though he doesn't seem to notice. He's staring at Rogue with such a focused expression, demanding and unwavering. Rogue's transfixed in it, she doesn't appear to be breathing.

"Hmm…no, not quite that expression, Wolvie." He should be convincing her of his love, not scaring the pants off of her. I mean, really. "Right amount of passion, but show more of that angst and tortured regret! Less brooding brow, more vulnerable eye.." I'm lifting a hand to make a few adjustments, and—

Suddenly, I'm slammed up against the wall, pretty outraged and very confused about the air that's been kicked out of me, and the sharp, warm metal now faintly knicking my neck with every breath. "What the—"

"I could gut you, Lee!" He looks very hostile, bristly, ragged chops and narrowed eyes. There's a pause that seems to weigh the leaden moment of our shock.

"I hope you don't mean to do that in front of me," I hear Rogue's reproving tone.

"Claws're aimed at the wrong place to gut me anyhow," I retort, and he extends the middle claw just a millimeter more, has me scrabbling back against the wall. "Fuck. What are you – gonna gut me 'cause you can't face love? Poor Wolverine. Not man enough to handle his pansy-ass emotions. And over a girl, too. Right in front of her even!"

He's starting to vibrate in rage, his other hand working in and out of a fist, as though the claws there are beginning to itch. My eyes widen and—is it wrong that I'm turned on right now?

"You're not helping, Jubes," Rogue remarks over Wolvie's shoulder.

"Um…" I giggle nervously, "I'm aware." Unlike them, but, yeah, let's get out of the three-pronged Grip o' Death. I place a firm palm on Logan's chest, give him a determined push that makes no impact at all. Damn, I'm small, and he's just…big. Lucky Rogue. "So, look, you gonna do somethin' about it? Seein' as how she's over there wanting you just as bad? Or are you gonna threaten me and everyone else all day?" I quirk my brow at him, but he remains frozen with that aggressive scowl on his face, aggressive stance invading MY SPACE.

No one appreciates it when I help.

"FINE." I knee him where it counts, kick him in the solar plexus, throw in a nice burst of sparks for good measure. He didn't expect it, and he goes reeling back, choking on apoplectic rage and pain. More of his shirt bites the dust. Good fingers. Nice view.

Rogue, of course, shrieks. Again. Well, Jesus, what did she want me to do?

"Logan, are you alright?" Totally fawning all over him, touching his chest way too much, and shooting daggers at me every other glance.

"Oh, my God! He heals! I didn't ruin his precious 'package' for you." He's even staggering to his feet, possessive clasp to Rogue's upper arm, and she's got his other hand in hers, soothing the knuckles. Jeez, can't it be about me for one second? Me and my near-death experience?

"I'm fine, thanks for askin'," I interject sarcastically, wincing as I wipe away the drop of blood from my neck. "But it looks like you two are ok. Anything else you need me to clarify? Got any other secrets to reveal? Or is it all hunky-do—"

I trail off as the two turn to each other, and then together, begin to advance on me. I suppose I'm only this nervous because they look so…determined.

"Hey—ow! Oh! You—ooph!" Deposited rather ungainfully on the other side of the door. Locked! "Hey, you two should be thanking me!" I pound harder, dammit. "You know, you don't SOUND grateful."

In fact, the only sound is silence, hard as I'm straining to hear. And then—ew! "Too much information," I yell through the door. "I don't need to know you're that grateful!"

"Fuck off, yellow! We're gonna fuck like bunnies now!" And I can hear Rogue's titter following.

And oh-ho-ho, am I ever gonna let everyone know Wolvie used a phrase like that!

I saunter away. 'Cause, look at that. I did in fifteen minutes what no one's managed to do in months and years. That was my moment. And oooh, yeaaah…I'm gonna make sure everyone knows it, too.


End file.
